Currently, as interest in the environment is increasing, demand for cleaning the room air is also increasing. Consequently, various air cleaning devices for removing contaminants in the air have been developed and are under development. An air cleaning filter devices uses an air cleaning filter which is required to be in various shapes and have various characteristics according to the types of the removing objects; the sizes of the removing objects; and the characteristics of the removing objects, and thus, a variety of filters are under development.
Especially, an air cleaning filter is required to have anti-microorganism or bactericidal capability for adequate removal or disinfection of microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, and virus floating in the air in order to obtain a satisfactory air cleaning effect.
On the other hand, it has been studied that the virus, a micro life which can not survive for itself but requires a host essentially, infects the host cell, parasitizes at the host, and reproduces itself according to its genetic information in a large amount. That means that the virus is different from other lives and has either a DNA or RNA at a nucleic acid in a cell. The typical examples of RNA viruses are an influenza virus, Ebola virus, AIDS virus, and so on. Since it is known that the RNA viruses make mutation 100,000 to 10,000,000 times easier than the DNA viruses, the prophylaxis of the infection of these RNA viruses is very difficult. Particularly, the influenza A (H1N1) virus, generally called as ‘a new kind of influenza,’ has a new H1N1 type genome structure different from an existing epidemic influenza virus because it is, for example, born a new kind of virus of swine influenza due to a human influenza virus adapted to a swine host and mixed with an already existing swine influenza virus.
If the new kind of influenza virus would be combined with an avian influenza virus in the swine host by means of gene swapping and thus generate another new kind of virus, then the global infection could be caused by it. It is, also, reported that a human being could also be infected with the above new kind of virus, and even a human being to a human being infection would be very easy, too.
In order to replicate or proliferate, the virus is required to be released from the host cell in viral life cycle (in viral shedding step), and an enzyme called as neuraminidase promotes viral shedding. Therefore, the virus can be sterilized by deactivating the enzyme (neuraminidase) so that prevent the virus from shedding/proliferating.
Meanwhile, it also has been studied that a Korean traditional food kimchi, prepared from many kinds of materials, enables to maintain a balance of nutrients. Kimchi is also known for its antibacterial activity, anti-inflammatory, and even anti-cancerous activity, since it comprises many kinds of antibiotics including allicin and a large amount of lactic acid bacteria influencing to metabolic activity of intestinal flora.
Moreover, according to the result of recent studies, since the culture solution extract of kimchi lactic acid bacteria is effective for treatment of viral disease, such as an avian influenza and a new kind of influenza A (H1N1 virus), interest in Koreans traditional food kimchi become higher and higher. It is known that kimchi has useful efficacy, such as anti-mutation, and anti-cancerous activity due to the functions of the kimchi materials, such as white cabbage and radish; and many kinds of lactic acid bacteria involved in fermentation of the kimchi in combination, and recently, it is also known that kimchi has antiviral activity against an avian influenza virus and a new kind of influenza virus, too.